The A/C compressor on my mother-in-law's Odyssey just kicked the can this week. Her usual place wants $1200 to replace it, which sounds way too high to me. A new one at O'Reilly is $400; surely it can't be $800 just to put it in and recharge the system. Am I off base here?

Bad AC compressor = black death inside all of the AC lines. If you put in a new compressor without flushing everything clean, it'll be dead within a day of normal usage. All of the lines, as well as the evap/condensor cores, need to be flushed out repeatedly to remove all of the tiny flakes of destroyed compressor caked inside them before even considering mounting a new compressor. $1200 is cheap, given the labor, especially with the cramped engine compartments on Odysseys.

You also need to replace the filter/dryer and all of the o-rings and seals, on top of the dead compressor, when opening up an AC system. It adds up quick.